Tuesday, March 26, 2013

I Seen My Chances…

“I seen my chances,
and I took’em” – George Washington Plunkitt

Tom Foley, an announced Republican candidate for governor,
dropped an anvil on the multi-footed Connecticut centipede, and -- Ouch!

A bill written by Mr. Foley and launched by State Senator
Joe Markley was, according to a story written by Mark Pazniokas in CTMirror,“problematic for many members of the part-time state legislature, including
a potential GOP rival.”

Mr. Pazniokas
is exceptionally well mannered, and “problematic” is his polite way of saying
that a bill touching so many careers hasn’t a snowball’s chance in Hell of
passing through Connecticut’s version of political Hell.

The potential
rival is Republican House Minority leader Larry Cafero, also eyeing the
governorship, but the Foley bill would eliminate, in the estimation of state Rep.
David K. Labriola, the brother of Republican Party Chairman Jerry Labriola,
roughly 500,000 residents from running for public office in Connecticut.

Under the Foley
standard, “no public official, state employee or member of their immediate
family could be employed by any organization that, among other things, is
minimally supported by state funds or employs a lobbyist… anyone who receives
$1,000 in income from an entity that derives 5 percent of its income from the
state would be in violation of the new standard,” as would members of their
immediate families.

The Foley proposal
brought Governor Dannel Malloy’s former flack-catcher, Roy Occhigrosso, back to
center stage. Mr. Occhiogrosso, who left his employment at Global Strategies to
assist a new governor with Connecticut’s media, melted back into the Global
Strategies woodwork after a couple of years and now has reemerged briefly as
the governor’s chief twitter apologist.

Global Strategies
was delighted to have Mr. Occhiogrosso back: ““We are delighted that Roy is rejoining
GSG,” said CEO Jon Silvan. “His deep expertise in private and not-for-profit
sector communications, combined with his vast experience in government and
politics makes him an incredible asset to our team and to our clients.”

Assuming Global
Strategies is “an entity that derives 5 percent of its income” in Connecticut,
and assuming further that Mr. Occhigrosso has “received more than $1,000” in
remuneration from Global Strategies, Mr. Occhiogrosso would not be able under
the austere Foley rule to run for office in Connecticut, although he might still
be able to divert flak from impeding Mr. Malloy’s forward progress, either on
the political stage or from behind the curtain.

The underlying
premise of Mr. Foley’s bill is that lobbyists are tar babies that soil the
souls of legislators who may write laws benefiting the companies to which the
lobbyists are attached. This is a favorite meme, as the progressive bloggers sometimes
say, of right thinking leftists, and Republicans are mildly shocked that Mr.
Foley has chosen to wield that cudgel against Mr. Cafero, among others, who
works for a law firm that does deploy lobbyists. Mr. Cafero’s law firm, as well
as many other companies, has erected a sort of Berlin Wall separating lobbying
functions from more respectable pursuits. This wall has been under attack for
years.

Politicians
generally tumble into corruption from inattention, and sometimes they are led
off the cliff by their subalterns; former Speaker off the state House Chris
Donovan may be a case in point. Law firms are generally circumspect, and Mr.
Cafero, who says he has never been the subject of an ethics complaint, is a
stickler for detail.

The real problem,
of course, is that seemingly endless and complex regulations invite a cozy
business relationship between companies and lobbyists that might be mitigated
by fewer and less arcane laws and regulations. But cutting away that brush
would put out of the lobbying business half the lawyers in Connecticut, not to
mention political advisory firms such as Global Strategies. One suspects that
Mr. Occhigrosso would manfully resist cleaning the Augean Stables of such
detritus because the cleansing would make less marketable “his vast experience
in government and politics.”